Monday, July 31. 2017

In 1556 St. Ignatius of Loyola -- founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order of Catholic priests and brothers -- died in Rome. In 1777 the Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army. In 1790 the first US patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins for his process for making potash and pearl ashes. The substance was used in fertilizer. In 1875 the 17th president of the US, Andrew Johnson, died in Carter Station, TN, at age 66. In 1912 economist Milton Friedman was born in New York City. In 1919 Germany's Weimar Constitution was adopted. In 1945 Pierre Laval, premier of the pro-Nazi Vichy government, surrendered to US authorities in Austria; he was turned over to France, which later tried and executed him. In 1964 the American space probe Ranger 7 transmitted pictures of the moon's surface. In 1971Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover. In 1972 Democratic vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdrew from the ticket with George McGovern following disclosures Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment. In 1991 President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow. In 1999 NASA intentionally crashed the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.